The Coming Collapse of the World Economy

[Robert_S]

This is a serious subject here. Can we move beyond post slicing and try to figure what we're gonna do with the situation we face?

We could get to work making things that would be appreciated by people who have other things that we want...

Oh, fuck that, let's fuck with some financial numbers.

[Coito ergo sum]

This is a serious subject here. Can we move beyond post slicing and try to figure what we're gonna do with the situation we face?

We could get to work making things that would be appreciated by people who have other things that we want...

Oh, fuck that, let's fuck with some financial numbers.

I was listening to the radio this morning, and a similar thought occurred to me. Someone on NPR was harping on how the President needed to get serious about "creating jobs" and suggested that people get put to work on roads and repairing infrastructure. That's all well and good, obviously, in that roads and bridges do, in fact, need to be maintained. However, it occurred to me that we aren't going to employ 10 million people doing that. It's just one industry. And, creating jobs is sort of putting the cart before the horse. We don't just need any old busy work to keep 1/2 of the people shoveling dirt out of a hole and the other half filling it back in again. What we need is good, vibrant industries that operate to create wealth and prosperity, and which hire employees because employees are needed to develop the industries. That's why we had such a good time of it in the 1990s - we had gigantic new industries to use and develop high technology and requiring employees to become skilled and knowledgeable in a variety of areas and requiring innovation and development.

The reason we don't have hiring in lots of industries in the US, for example, is because those industries don't need the employees to meet current demand for their products and services.

Just dumping money into "jobs programs" doesn't really work to sustain a healthy economy. It might bridge a gap here and there to ease some pain as an economic cycle moves along, but it can't solve real problems or be a long term sustainable solution.

Some economists theorize or say that it doesn't matter where the government spends the money when injecting money into the economy with economic stimulus. That's what was said at the time of the last couple of stimulus programs. While I am not an economist, the suggestion that it doesn't matter where the money goes only if the assumption is that it isn't wasted, and there must certainly be better uses of several hundred billion dollars than other uses. That's why I suggested at the time of the 2/2009 stimulus that huge expenditures ought to be made in the space industry and the energy industries (nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, etc.) - spend the money actually expanding industries with a view toward the things created outlasting the stimulus, and becoming self-sustaining industrial efforts. Moreover, the expenditures in those industries would entail top-to-bottom employment not just of unskilled and semi-skilled labor, but also highly skilled, technical and scientific folks.

[Atheist-Lite]

This is a serious subject here. Can we move beyond post slicing and try to figure what we're gonna do with the situation we face?

We could get to work making things that would be appreciated by people who have other things that we want...

Oh, fuck that, let's fuck with some financial numbers.

I was listening to the radio this morning, and a similar thought occurred to me. Someone on NPR was harping on how the President needed to get serious about "creating jobs" and suggested that people get put to work on roads and repairing infrastructure. That's all well and good, obviously, in that roads and bridges do, in fact, need to be maintained. However, it occurred to me that we aren't going to employ 10 million people doing that. It's just one industry. And, creating jobs is sort of putting the cart before the horse. We don't just need any old busy work to keep 1/2 of the people shoveling dirt out of a hole and the other half filling it back in again. What we need is good, vibrant industries that operate to create wealth and prosperity, and which hire employees because employees are needed to develop the industries. That's why we had such a good time of it in the 1990s - we had gigantic new industries to use and develop high technology and requiring employees to become skilled and knowledgeable in a variety of areas and requiring innovation and development.

The reason we don't have hiring in lots of industries in the US, for example, is because those industries don't need the employees to meet current demand for their products and services.

Just dumping money into "jobs programs" doesn't really work to sustain a healthy economy. It might bridge a gap here and there to ease some pain as an economic cycle moves along, but it can't solve real problems or be a long term sustainable solution.

Some economists theorize or say that it doesn't matter where the government spends the money when injecting money into the economy with economic stimulus. That's what was said at the time of the last couple of stimulus programs. While I am not an economist, the suggestion that it doesn't matter where the money goes only if the assumption is that it isn't wasted, and there must certainly be better uses of several hundred billion dollars than other uses. That's why I suggested at the time of the 2/2009 stimulus that huge expenditures ought to be made in the space industry and the energy industries (nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, etc.) - spend the money actually expanding industries with a view toward the things created outlasting the stimulus, and becoming self-sustaining industrial efforts. Moreover, the expenditures in those industries would entail top-to-bottom employment not just of unskilled and semi-skilled labor, but also highly skilled, technical and scientific folks.

Seems a bit too rationial for the times Coito. The powers that be would label you a communist or something with that kind of reasonable thinking. Where's the money for the military in all this for instance?

[Clinton Huxley]

CES advocting a planned economy? Politicians taking a punt on industrial horses, using taxpayer money? The very thought.

[Coito ergo sum]

CES advocting a planned economy? Politicians taking a punt on industrial horses, using taxpayer money? The very thought.

I don't think anything I wrote approached a "planned economy," which I did not advocate. However, we do have a space industry, which I support, and have always supported. I never suggested anywhere, ever, that the government can't spend money on things. Not sure where you ever got the impression otherwise.... well, unless opposition to complete wastes of resources, arbitrary action, and monumental boondoggles is somehow to be construed as an opposition to any and all government action of any kind....

[Hermit]

This is a serious subject here. Can we move beyond post slicing and try to figure what we're gonna do with the situation we face?

Too easy: stop the focus on profits in the short term at the expense of long term damage.

[Tigger]

Gawdzilla, this post http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 28#p948828 is personal attack and is clearly against the rules. Please desist, as further such posts will result in a short suspension of your account.

[JimC]

Sandinista, these posts:

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 39#p948839
http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 39#p948833

are personal attacks and are clearly against the rules. Please desist, as further such posts will result in a short suspension of your account.

[Clinton Huxley]

CES advocting a planned economy? Politicians taking a punt on industrial horses, using taxpayer money? The very thought.

I don't think anything I wrote approached a "planned economy," which I did not advocate. However, we do have a space industry, which I support, and have always supported. I never suggested anywhere, ever, that the government can't spend money on things. Not sure where you ever got the impression otherwise.... well, unless opposition to complete wastes of resources, arbitrary action, and monumental boondoggles is somehow to be construed as an opposition to any and all government action of any kind....

You great big, damned socialist...

Blighty kind of tried this with Concorde. We got a technically brilliant aircraft and it propped up the aerospace industry for a bit but I don't think we made much, if any, money from it. Same goes for the Fast Breeder Reactor programme and sundry others. Politicians are not great at picking winners.

Would you trust your politicos to aproach a programme like you propose in an adult and rational manner....I wouldn't trust them with a spoon.

[Coito ergo sum]

This is a serious subject here. Can we move beyond post slicing and try to figure what we're gonna do with the situation we face?

We could get to work making things that would be appreciated by people who have other things that we want...

Oh, fuck that, let's fuck with some financial numbers.

I was listening to the radio this morning, and a similar thought occurred to me. Someone on NPR was harping on how the President needed to get serious about "creating jobs" and suggested that people get put to work on roads and repairing infrastructure. That's all well and good, obviously, in that roads and bridges do, in fact, need to be maintained. However, it occurred to me that we aren't going to employ 10 million people doing that. It's just one industry. And, creating jobs is sort of putting the cart before the horse. We don't just need any old busy work to keep 1/2 of the people shoveling dirt out of a hole and the other half filling it back in again. What we need is good, vibrant industries that operate to create wealth and prosperity, and which hire employees because employees are needed to develop the industries. That's why we had such a good time of it in the 1990s - we had gigantic new industries to use and develop high technology and requiring employees to become skilled and knowledgeable in a variety of areas and requiring innovation and development.

The reason we don't have hiring in lots of industries in the US, for example, is because those industries don't need the employees to meet current demand for their products and services.

Just dumping money into "jobs programs" doesn't really work to sustain a healthy economy. It might bridge a gap here and there to ease some pain as an economic cycle moves along, but it can't solve real problems or be a long term sustainable solution.

Some economists theorize or say that it doesn't matter where the government spends the money when injecting money into the economy with economic stimulus. That's what was said at the time of the last couple of stimulus programs. While I am not an economist, the suggestion that it doesn't matter where the money goes only if the assumption is that it isn't wasted, and there must certainly be better uses of several hundred billion dollars than other uses. That's why I suggested at the time of the 2/2009 stimulus that huge expenditures ought to be made in the space industry and the energy industries (nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, etc.) - spend the money actually expanding industries with a view toward the things created outlasting the stimulus, and becoming self-sustaining industrial efforts. Moreover, the expenditures in those industries would entail top-to-bottom employment not just of unskilled and semi-skilled labor, but also highly skilled, technical and scientific folks.

Seems a bit too rationial for the times Coito. The powers that be would label you a communist or something with that kind of reasonable thinking. Where's the money for the military in all this for instance?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Literally, the money for the military would come from the same place all other government money comes from: taxes, fees, duties, tariffs, fines, penalties, assessments, etc. collected or imposed on private individuals, groups, and companies. But, I doubt that is what you were asking.

[Coito ergo sum]

This is a serious subject here. Can we move beyond post slicing and try to figure what we're gonna do with the situation we face?

Too easy: stop the focus on profits in the short term at the expense of long term damage.

What would that mean, specifically, in terms of what should be done?

[Coito ergo sum]

CES advocting a planned economy? Politicians taking a punt on industrial horses, using taxpayer money? The very thought.

I don't think anything I wrote approached a "planned economy," which I did not advocate. However, we do have a space industry, which I support, and have always supported. I never suggested anywhere, ever, that the government can't spend money on things. Not sure where you ever got the impression otherwise.... well, unless opposition to complete wastes of resources, arbitrary action, and monumental boondoggles is somehow to be construed as an opposition to any and all government action of any kind....

You great big, damned socialist...

I don't support socialism. What is it, exactly, in what I said I supported that you think is socialism? In fact, since I basically said I opposed wasting money, I can't see as how you could possibly conclude I am a socialist....

Blighty kind of tried this with Concorde. We got a technically brilliant aircraft and it propped up the aerospace industry for a bit but I don't think we made much, if any, money from it. Same goes for the Fast Breeder Reactor programme and sundry others. Politicians are not great at picking winners.

Yankee tried this with Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz, the Space Shuttle Program, the US parts of Skylab and the ISS, Voyager, Mariner, Sprit & Opportunity, Pathfinder, Stardust, Passport to Pluto, Hubble Space Telescope, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Lunar Orbiter, Lunar Prospector, Lunar Ranger, Lunar Surveyor, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor, NEAR Shoemaker, Deep Space One, Deep Impact, Cassini (of Cassini-Huygens), DAWN, Galileo, Magellan, Messenger, New Horizons, Pioneer, Pioneer Venus, Juno Spacecraft, Solar Maximum Mission, SOHO, Ulysses, STEREO, Solar Dynamics Observatory, Genesis (spacecraft), GRACE, UARS, Cosmic Background Explorer, Earth Observing One, Einstein Observatory, Multiimaging Spectral Radiometer, Uhuru, Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), High Energy Astronomy Observatory 1 (HEAO 1), Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE), Landsat, Chandra X-Ray Obs., Spitzer Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and more.....we got more scientific achievement in the 50 years of the aforesaid, and more, programs, than in all of human history combined, and the industries/technological development that have spun off such efforts approach infinity.

I wouldn't suggest that government pick winners in private industry. I would suggest that government promote the sciences and the useful arts, and particularly engage in tasks that private industry doesn't really have a motive to do and which will benefit mankind.

Would you trust your politicos to aproach a programme like you propose in an adult and rational manner....I wouldn't trust them with a spoon.

I am not proposing a program. The "program" was already done. What I am proposing is spending money on things other than "turtle crossings" in Florida, boondoggles to fund this Senator or that Representative's airport or library project, digital television advertising, water pipelines to golf courses, studies on "hook up" behavior of college coeds, hotel renovations, and billions of dollars of wastes of money.

I don't get where you're coming from on this one. You seem to trust them with a lot of spoons. You don't mind the government being trusted with health care. Why is that something you trust them with, but something I wrote is beyond their ken?

Again - my point was this: after looking into what our incompetents in government spent money on pursuant to the boondoggle 2009 $800,000,000,000 "stimulus" program, I would rather they saved the money and not spent it at all. However, if they were going to spend the money, I would rather they do it on things that actually accomplish something worthwhile. In my opinion, the things I listed are worthwhile. Others might have other suggestions. The shit they spent a lot of the "stimulus" funds on, however, is far from worthwhile, and if anyone actually thinks about it isn't even funny - it's tragic.

[Clinton Huxley]

Christ, CES, I'm not reading all that

I think if you spend the dough on basic research (and re-furbing schools and so forth), it's money well spent.

To paraphrase Kennedy, your fundamental resource is the human mind...

[Coito ergo sum]

Christ, CES, I'm not reading all that

Read it, you won't be sorry, I assure you.

I think if you spend the dough on basic research (and re-furbing schools and so forth), it's money well spent.

So...you would trust them with a spoon....

It doesn't take $800 billion to do that. Toss an extra $10 billion a year to NASA on top of what we already spend and we could finish Constellation and build that Moon base at Clavius crater, and get ready to go to Mars.

To paraphrase Kennedy, your fundamental resource is the human mind...

Kennedy also said,

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community.

Read the whole speech: http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/ ... nedy/3.htm

That was 49 years ago, but reading it today fires me up for space exploration....

[Hermit]

This is a serious subject here. Can we move beyond post slicing and try to figure what we're gonna do with the situation we face?

Too easy: stop the focus on profits in the short term at the expense of long term damage.

What would that mean, specifically, in terms of what should be done?

The "too easy" bit was very much tongue in cheek.

Unfortunately, corporate culture and structure, as well as the very basis of the capitalist economic system militate against taking a long term view. In particular, the shareholder's baying for maximum possible dividends; The board of directors and the CEO will find themselves out of a job soon enough if they don't deliver. So they will almost invariably go for the easy option: deliver profits at the expense of long term sustainability.

At the same time, I don't see how communism would work. There is nothing like competition to find more efficient ways to produce goods. Without the cutthroat nature of it, we would not have the amazing improvements in computer hardware capabilities, nor the stupendously dropping prices of those components. I think that if the computer industry was owned and operated by a communist system, we'd be using the equivalent of a Trabant instead of a BMW right now. Nothing seems to work as well in this regard as very material incentives and disincentives on a personal level, neither of which are present when you live in an economic system governed by this ma(r)xim: "From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need."

I think a judicious blend of capitalism and socialism might go some way toward aemeliorating the destructive aspects inhering capitalism as well as the incapabilities at the core of communism, but what that blend consists of will vary by location and time. There are no hard and fast rules.